3.27.2007

Animal Story Farm

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Chuang Chuang the panda has been spending his days in front of a big screen television watching panda porn.

Authorities at the Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand hope the images will encourage him to mate with his partner, Lin Hui, and serve as an instructional lesson in how to do it right.

So far, it's been a tough sell, the zoo's chief veterinarian, Kanika Limtrakul, said Tuesday.

"Chuang Chuang seems indifferent to the videos; he has no reaction to what he's seeing on TV," Kanika said. "But, we're continuing to show him videos and hoping they will leave an impression."

One wonders whether Thai panda porn has a 1970s-style boom-chicka-wow-wow soundtrack. Maybe instead of the hardcore panda porn, they should get some of those soft-core spring break videos from Bangkok: Pandas Gone Wild! Then maybe Chuang Chuang and Lin Hui can get their freak on.

DARWIN, Australia - An environmental group said Tuesday it had captured a "monster" toad the size of a small dog.

With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the toad is among the largest specimens ever captured in Australia, according to Frogwatch coordinator Graeme Sawyer.

The cane toads are a nuisance exotic species and quite poisonous, so Frogwatch rounds them up, kills and detoxifies them and then mulches them for fertilizer. No word on whether Godzilla the toad will get the same treatment, although I suspect he will. Unlike Knut the polar bear cub in Berlin, the toad isn't cute and cuddly, so his mulching would cause little outrage in the world, outside of radical toad activists. You laugh, but there are probably some out there. Believe it.